... according to the artist, Nelson Shanks. �If you look at the left-hand side of it, there�s a mantle in the Oval Office and I put a shadow coming into the painting and it does two things,� the painter said.
�It actually literally represents a shadow from a blue dress that I had on a mannequin, that I had there while I was painting it, but not when he was there. It is also a bit of a metaphor in that it represents a shadow on the office he held, or on him.�
That is, Bill Clinton
posed for this artist, who nevertheless took it upon himself not just to subtly interpose an allusion to the Lewinsky scandal but also
to tell the world that he did so.
Shanks claimed that the Clintons have been lobbying the National Portrait Gallery to remove it, but a gallery spokeswoman denied that to the Daily News. Clinton reportedly chose Shanks to paint the portrait back in 2001.
Oh! Clinton even
chose him. Wow. Smacking your
patron around. That must be an old portraiture game, right? Can anyone cite historical examples of this sort of thing?
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